After about 2 and a half years of battling for my privacy, I’m finally at a place where I can step back and be happy. Technically the seed of privacy was planted 5 years ago, but it hadn’t become a goal yet.

I used to use Windows 7 (even 10 and 11, eventually), an iPhone 6, Gmail, Google Hangouts (anyone else remember when it was called that?) and Discord as my main messengers, Snapchat, Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, Reddit, ChatGPT, Chrome, Google, Avast and Avast VPN, YouTube, Authy, and so, so much more.

I am so fortunate to be able to be where I’m at now. I use Fedora (Silverblue. I tried secureblue but it was too strict for my taste), a Pixel 8 running GrapheneOS, Proton Mail + addy.io (although I try to use email as little as possible), Signal and SimpleX Chat, a “self-hosted” music library, some cheaper ways to stream movies, Lemmy (duh), HuggingChat (because I don’t have the hardware to run my own model quite yet), Tor Browser and another (I want to avoid arguments about my browser choice), SearXNG, Proton VPN (until I can get Mullvad VPN paid for), FreeTube, Aegis Authenticator, and a plethora of other software.

I got quite lucky with device compatibility. My computer and laptop just so happen to be compatible with every distro I’ve tried, and I’ve sure dragged them through hell to find the one I want. I’m blessed to have been able to snag a decent phone for GrapheneOS, and so glad to have automated the transition from Spotify.

It’s been a good run. I’m glad to finally be satisfied with where I’m at. I started to see the fruit of my labor months ago. Now I can rest easy and do my part to help others become more privacy aware. I’d love to hear your story too, maybe mine isn’t far off!

Bonus story: The straw that broke the camel’s back that caused me to fully switch to Linux was Windows 11’s Efficiency Mode. It’s a cute feature that throttles the performance of programs to save on carbon emissions… and (at the time) you couldn’t disable it. You could disable it per-process, but it would re-enable itself shortly after. ChatGPT was becoming quite popular at the time, but Efficiency Mode slowing down the browser made it nearly unusable. I did look for ways to permanently disable it, but either I wasn’t experienced enough or it didn’t exist yet. Well, no way except to replace Windows altogether!

          • shortwavesurfer
            2·
            3 hours ago

            I’ve bought two things from there so far and it’s worked out well. However, I did try to buy one other thing and it did not work out. So what I advise very seriously is use the escrow system if you are dealing with somebody with very low reputation or trades or find somebody who has high reputation and trades to do business with.

            I was being too trusting, one buying some hand soap. And a person with zero reputation decided to take my Monero and not send me the soap. And so I had to buy it from somebody with a better reputation. So just don’t make that mistake and you’ll be alright.

            • The 8232 Project@lemmy.mlOP
              1·
              3 hours ago

              I will always find the idea of buying ordinary items with Monero to be a little funny. You spend years building up your privacy and go through the effort to have an anonymous Monero wallet and then… buy a towel, or a cup of sugar. I guess because it isn’t fully “mainstream” it’s just a little funny seeing such ordinary things cropping up as an option to spend it on.

              • shortwavesurfer
                1·
                7 minutes ago

                That’s because it’s just simply money. Can you buy drugs with it? Sure. But most people are going to buy towels for their bathroom and soap for their dispensers and food to put in their stomachs. It’s money just like any other. And money gets used for all sorts of things.

    • HotCoffee@lemm.ee
      1·
      21 hours ago

      Ah Monero, a privacy powerhouse of a solution against centralized banking, truly a beautiful piece of tech. But sadly cursed with the crypto stigma that even seasoned privacy veterans are afraid off.

      Hope some day people will set aside their cryptophobia to use Monero, the only true private digital currency. Why else do you think so many countries and goverments try to ben it. Because it actually works and they can’t control it.

      Even your comment got downvoted… But hey once they called GrapheneOS, Linux, Signal etc. users crazy…